MSU-N Notebook: Lights showed they are hungry to win

On Saturday, inside a sunny and warm Blue Pony Stadium, one head coach, Montana State University-Northern's Aaron Christensen, or Rocky Mountain College's Jason Petrino, was going to get his first career win.

In the end, it was Petrino who did just that, as the Battlin' Bears beat the Lights 31-21 to open the 2016 Frontier Conference football season. Make no mistake, Northern battled hard to get their second-year head coach his first win. But in the end, Rocky's ability to capitalize on four Northern turnovers proved to be the difference in it being Petrino, a former Carroll College All-American, who came to RMC after Brian Armstrong left to coach at Montana State, the victory.

 "The feeling is great coming out here and getting a win," Battlin' Bears defensive lineman Seth Swandal said.  "I think we did a pretty good job coming together as a team to get this win, the first win in the Petrino era."

While Rocky leaves Havre 1-0 on the young season, Northern will have to wait at least 14 days to try again for Christensen's first W. The Lights have a bye this week, then travel to Montana Tech Sept. 10.

And, as Christensen always preaches, the only thing the Lights are concerned about is winning their next game. He says it often, and he said it when he addressed his team after Saturday's loss.

He also saw plenty of progress from Northern's first game of 2016, and its last of 2015, which was also a loss in Havre to RMC. Yet, now he says, the goals are different.

"You can see the progress we've made, you could see it out there today," Christensen said. "We're getting better. But at the same time, these guys are so hungry to get a win. That's what they want. Maybe, at times last year, we just wanted to make sure we got better. Now it's different. They're hungry to win a game. They played hard for that win today, but in order to do it, we have to play better than we did today."

Achilles Heel

If there was anything that held the Lights back from even having a chance to grab a win in the 2015 rebuilding season, it was turnovers. In last year's 0-11 campaign, the MSU-N offense gave the ball away 21 times. That was an area Northern had to address, and after Saturday's loss to RMC, it still is.

Northern junior quarterback Jess Krahn was intercepted three times, and he and senior running back Zach McKinley had a fumbled exchange near their own goal line. Those four turnovers led directly to a combined 21 points from RMC, and, though MSU-N safety Logan Sprouse snagged his fourth career interception in the third quarter Saturday, the Lights are now -3 in turnover margin just one game into their season.

"Turnovers were big today," Christensen said. "We just gave them (Bears) too many extra opportunities with those turnovers. Protecting the football is something we knew we had to do, and we know going forward we have to do a much better job of that. That really hurt us today."

Stepping Up

The Lights didn't get the W they were looking for Saturday, but, according to McKinley, who had 85 yards on a hard-fought 25 carries, things were definitely different than when Northern played Rocky in Havre last November.

For starters, the Lights battled and kept the game within their grasp the whole way. And, with two scores in the second half, they certainly refused to go quietly, something that was much different than when they lost by an average of more than 30 points per game a season ago.

Also, new standouts started to emerge. Sure, stalwarts like McKinley, Tyler Craig, Patrick Barnett, Jordan Brusio, Garet Fowler and Sprouse made key plays all game - but so did fresh faces like linebacker Alec Wagner, corner Corey Lee, receivers Donovan Garner and Sam Mix, and many others.

In other words, in spite of coming up short on the scoreboard, the Lights showed they are coming, they showed they have talent and depth, and they showed, they're getting better.

"You can tell it's a lot different out there," McKinley said. "Last year, this game probably would have been a much bigger margin. But when the heat was on us today, the defense went out and got stops, and the offense was able to put some points on the board. So, we're getting better and we're going to keep getting better. We're just not quite there yet though. So we have to keep working, keep getting after it."